Bombers killed 12 people in northern Iraqi towns and villages on Monday in the second consecutive day of attacks in areas at the centre of a bitter feud between Baghdad and autonomous Kurdistan. The ethnically mixed, disputed territories - the swathe of land marking Iraq from the area administered by Kurds in the north - have been a potential flashpoint for conflict since the buffer of the last American troops left a year ago.

Two blasts hit a Shia district in Tuz Khurmato, killing at least five and wounding 24 and a truck bomb killed seven in a Shabak minority area near Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of the capital, security and local officials said.

Copyright Reuters, 2012